Prospect rankings: The Top 20

Jenifer Langosch/MLB.com

Over the past few weeks, MLB.com has been rolling out various prospect lists in advance of the start of another season. First came specific position rankings, which were dotted with Cardinals Minor Leaguers. Then came the overall Top 100; the Cards placed six players in that top group, including Oscar Taveras at the No. 3 spot.

On Wednesday, the Cardinals’ Top 20 list was announced. It comes as no surprise that Taveras sits at the top. But what’s particularly striking is the depth the Cardinals tout in their system. The organization has several potential high-impact prospects and are loaded with young pitching.

Eleven of the organization’s Top 15 prospects are pitchers, including three of the first four. The Cardinals also had four member of their 2012 Draft class dent this Top 20 list.

Jenifer, since you didn’t write this list, I’m going to be unabashed about dumping all over it. (Which is not to say I wouldn’t necessarily do the same for one that you wrote, but you seem to be a nice person, so…)

The top 8 on this list are about right and entirely obvious, although I personally would move Trevor Rosenthal and his awesome arm up one notch. From there on, however, I think this one is utter garbage. It rapidly develops a veneer of “first round draft picks plus pitchers I have heard of.” At least that is the only explanation I can imagine for putting John Gast in the #10 spot, rather than down around #20 where most everyone else has him. Blazek, Cleto and Fornataro are also massive overrates. And what is Seth Freaking Blair doing on this list? Power arm, but he can’t find the strike zone with a GPS system. He wouldn’t be in my top 30, let alone number 13. Meanwhile, he completely misses the boat on solid position players like Greg and Anthony Garcia, Starlin Rodriguez, Mike O’Neill, etc. And if he’s going to find room for Gast and Blazek, there should clearly be a place for Kevin Siegrist, who almost certainly has a higher ceiling as a LHP than either of those guys.

Generally, as sloppy a list as we’ve come to expect of Mayo when he looks at Cardinals prospects.

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